The Illinois
Trade Association, founded in 1983, is the largest independent
barter company in the United States. They represent 6,000
professional clients as well as 1,000 corporate clients, such as
resorts and media outlets.

With such a
large client base covering the U.S. and Mexico, and a relatively
small sales force of 15, ITA faced a roadblock to future growth
because of unreliable remote access to its business-critical
applications. (The company employs another 50 people, and its IT
staff comprises two programmers.)

So to push the
company�s sales toward their $100 million annual sales goal, they
took action! Schacht says the problem was solved when ITA partnered
with Performance Network Solutions, a Silver Citrix Solution
Advisor.

Now their
salespeople, when working from home a hotel or a customer site, can
use their own computers or company laptops to securely access the 20
client applications that are maintained centrally. (ITA is also
experimenting with extending the solution to its brokers.)

Cofounder and
president Jack Schacht says the improvement is amazing. �Our remote
users were losing valuable time, a half hour a day or more, due to
dial-up connections. Now they can connect quickly, and don�t have to
make a special trip to the office for something. This saves them
time that can be spent selling.�

He continued,
�We figured nearly $4,000 per person was lost yearly in
productivity. And when ITA wanted to hire additional out-of-state
people, there was the big question of how to provide them with
access to our applications and data.�